The Awakened Kingdom —
N. K. Jemisin

2014’s
The
Awakened Kingdom is
a sequel to N. K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.

Years
after the events of the trilogy, the Gods Itempas and Yeinne make a
godling, one who might fit the place left empty by the late Sieh.
Being gods, they raise their child Shill in the manner befitting
gods, which is essentially to kick the kid out the door and hope for
the best.

Scream Blacula Scream —
Bob Kelljan
Blacula, book 2

Outraged
that his voodoo-queen mother has selected talented and powerful Lisa
Fortier (played by Pam Grier) as her successor, Willis (Richard
Lawson) seeks out a disgraced voodoo master, from whom he purchases
the bones of the late Prince Mamuwalde (William H. Marshall). Armed
with a modicum of magic, Willis plans to resurrect the vampire and
then compel Mamuwalde to take vengeance on Lisa.

Red Rider’s Hood —
Neal Shusterman
Dark Fusion, book 2

2005’s
Red
Rider’s Hood
is the second volume in Neal Shusterman’s Dark
Fusion
series. It is a modern-day retelling of
Little Red Riding Hood.

Sixteen-year-old
Red allows himself to be distracted by the revelation that classmate
Marissa Flowers might have a bit of a crush on him. His befuddlement
allows Cedric Soames’ Wolf gang to ambush, overpower, and rob Red
and his beloved Grandma. Worse, the gang steals Red’s beloved Mustang.

Bloodchild and Other Stories —
Octavia E. Butler

Octavia
E. Butler’s 1995 Bloodchild
and Other Stories
is a collection. The particular edition I have is the Open Road Media
edition; I know there’s an updated version, but I do not know if
that edition is different from the one I have in hand.

Domino Falls —
Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
Devil's Wake, book 2

Freak
Day, when the infected turned on their former friends, neighbours,
and family members, ended the comfortable old world. Mere weeks after
Freak Day, most humans are either dead or infected. The few untainted
survivors struggle to survive and to avoid the infection even one
bite can transmit.

Kendra
lost her family to Freak Day and its aftermath. No person can survive
alone for long; luckily for Kendra, she has five reliable allies in
Terry, Piranha, Sonia, Dean, and Darius. Even better, the six teens
may have found the refuge they need in Domino Falls, one of the few
towns to survive Freak Day.

Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, AD 1933–1940 —
George S. Schuyler

George
S. Schuyler’s 1931 Black
No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of
Science in the Land of the Free, AD 1933–1940
is a satire.

Where
other inventors have offered temporary hair straightening and
skin-lightening methods, Dr. Crookman provides a service that is both
thorough and permanent: any American Negro with fifty dollars can
walk into one of Crookman’s sanatoria and emerge indistinguishable
from the white majority.

Barrayar —
Lois McMaster Bujold
Cordelia Vorkosigan, book 2

Lois
McMaster Bujold’s 1991 Barrayar
is the second Cordelia Vorkosigan novel. I am going to put off
working out how to number it in the grander Vorkosigan Saga and
Vorkosigan Universe sequences in the hope that nobody will notice if
I am inconsistent1.

The
plan: Barrayaran Aral marries Betan Cordelia; Aral retires from
active duty and the couple lives on their country estate, there to
enjoy long, happy lives.

The
outcome: Emperor Ezar Vorbarra is dying and has one last task for
Aral. It is a weighty task that will burden Aral and Cordelia for
years to come.

To Raise a Clenched Fist to the Sky —
T. Thorn Coyle
The Panther Chronicles, book 1

To
Raise a Clenched Fist to the Sky is
the first volume in T. Thorn Coyle’s Panther
Chronicles.

By
1968 the Summer of Love is a fading memory. Activism has taken centre
stage. Nowhere is that more true than in Oakland, where the Black
Panthers are working hard to set up community kitchens and raise
political consciousness. It’s a heady time for Berkeley freshman
Jasmine, who is new to the Bay Area.

Redemption in Indigo —
Karen Lord

Paama
finally has had it with her gluttonous fool of a husband, Ansige, and
leaves. Ansige is unwilling to let her go, and hires master tracker
Kwame to find her. Kwame cannot convince Paama to return to Ansige.
What he does do is draw the attention of the Djombi to Paama.

These
great spirits have vast powers, but they still have need of someone
like Paama.

The Ballad of Black Tom —
Victor Lavalle

Victor
Lavalle’s 2016 novella The
Ballad of Black Tom
is a standalone tale of cosmic horror. It is a retelling of
Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook” told from a perspective
Lovecraft would never have considered.

Charles
Thomas Tester, black and forever denied full membership in American
society, supports his aged father by serving as middleman between
rich New York clients and the occult community. They want artefacts
of power; he can provide. But Tester is careful. He does his best to
limit his exposure to dread powers. Let rich white fools dabble in
the forbidden; Tester is a sensible man who plans to remain alive and sane.

The Count of Monte Cristo —
Alexandre Dumas

1844’s
The Count of Monte Cristo is a standalone novel of revenge written by
Alexandre Dumas. While it is not my usual SF, it has certainly
influenced SF. As well, there were (to my surprise) not one but two
SFnal moments in the book.

Young
Edmond Dantès has it all, from a solid career to a loving fiancée.
Alas for Dantès, success engenders jealousy. In short order he is
framed for Bonapartist subversion and secretly consigned to life
imprisonment in the forbidding Château d’If. His friends and loved
ones will never know why he vanished.

Dragonfly Falling —
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Shadows of the Apt, book 2

2009’s
Dragonfly
Falling
is the second volume in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows
of the Apt decology.

The
city-state of Collegium is the keystone of Lowland resistance to the
coming Wasp Empire conquest of the lowlands. The Empire tried — and
failed — to remove Collegium from the board with a swift, bold
gambit. No matter. When cunning fails, there is always brute force.

Binti —
Nnedi Okorafor
Binti, book 1

2016’s
Binti
is
the first volume in Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti series.

Early
one morning, young Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka packs her things
and leaves her home. None of her family is awake. None of them would
approve if they knew she was leaving. And why she was leaving. Binti
is abandoning her Himba community to accept a scholarship at university.

And
not just any university. Oomza Uni is on another world. Binti is not
just leaving her homeland of Namib behind. She is leaving Earth.

Babel-17 —
Samuel R. Delany

1966’s
Babel-17
is an SF novel by Samuel R. Delany. Not his first (he had already
published a number of Ace Doubles and one standalone), but the one
that made his name. It shared the Nebula with Flowers
for Algernon
and was nominated for the Hugo as well, losing to The
Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
It shares some elements of its setting with an earlier Delany novel,
Empire Star.

Victory
over the Invaders may depend on understanding a series of
indecipherable messages broadcast in an odd code? cipher? language?
that the authorities label Babel-17. The Alliance turns to noted
linguist Rydra Wong. “Tell us what this is and tell us what it
means!”

Deep Secret —
Diana Wynne Jones
Magid, book 1

1997’s
Deep
Secret
is the first of two novels in Diana Wynne Jones’ Magid series.

Through
no fault of his own, magid Rupert Venables is drawn into two pressing
succession problems. The first problem is to find a magid trainee.
The former head magid has died (well, he’s dead but not exactly
gone;
such is the nature of magids). Rupert is now the senior magid and
needs an apprentice and future successor. The second problem is
finding the true
heir to the Koryfonic Empire, hidden away by the previous, rather
paranoid, emperor.

It’s
no use asking the emperor himself: Timos IX is very sincerely, very
thoroughly dead. So are Timos’ friends and confidants, who might
have known where the heir had been stashed. The bomb that reduced
Timos IX to vapour was very large.

Rupert
decides backburner the question of the missing heir and focus on the
quest to find an apprentice and head-magid-to-be. That should at
least be straightforward.